Education Minister Leighton Andrews has today claimed he would have been “crucified” had he intervened in this summer's GCSE grading fiasco sooner.

Appearing before the Assembly’s Children and Young People Committee, Mr Andrews said there was no evidence to support an earlier ministerial intervention.

It follows fresh revelations that Welsh Government officials first discussed changes in methodology – which led to students in Wales receiving lower grades – as far back as January 13.

In written evidence to the Children and Young People Committee, Mr Andrews said it was not until August 15 that he was made aware of their decision to approve the changes.

Critics believe the GCSE grading fiasco - which led to an embarrassing re-grade for Welsh students - could have been avoided had the issue been addressed sooner.

A month later, the minister ordered Welsh exam board WJEC to re-grade tainted papers in what the Welsh Government described as a “swift resolution of an injustice”.

When asked why he had not intervened sooner, Mr Andrews said it would not have been possible until after results were published.

He told Assembly Members: “After I became involved, the question for me was, should I intervene and if so, what would be the implications?

“If I were to intervene, it would essentially mean I would say the setting of grade boundaries in Wales will be done on a different basis from the setting of grade boundaries in England.”

Mr Andrews said he would have been “crucified in the media and indeed by members” if he had intervened without the evidence to base that judgement.

He said it did not become apparent that changes in methodology had effected outcomes until after the publication of GCSE English language results in August.

Mr Andrews said it was the Welsh Government’s view that ministers should only be “brought into regulation issues” when matters were of a serious nature.

He suggested that it would be far too time-consuming for ministers to play an active role in regulation for the duration of the calendar year.

A brewing row over this year’s GCSE English language scores ignited in August when teachers across Britain raised concerns that exams had been marked too harshly.

Mr Andrews launched an investigation into Wales’ English language performance after figures revealed an alarming 4% dip in the coveted A*-C benchmark.

A report published by the Welsh Government in September found that new methodology used to award grades led to candidates from Wales being awarded lower marks than would normally be expected.

It blamed England’s exams regulator Ofqual for the discrepancy, believing its insistence on using Key Stage 2 (KS2) predictors to determine expected outcomes had impacted on Welsh scores.

The change meant pupils in Wales had been graded against prior attainment in England, though officials said it was “hard to justify continued resistance” when it became apparent there were more students sitting the exam across the border.

Although 95% of students in Wales sat the WJEC’s English language GCSE, more than 70% of the exam board’s total candidates for the qualification were in England.

On that basis, the Welsh Government said it reluctantly agreed a “compromise” with Ofqual in order to guarantee results were published on time.